Malika Oufkir
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Malika Oufkir (Arabic: مليكة أوفقير) (born April 2, 1953) is a Moroccan writer and former "disappeared". She is the daughter of General Mohamed Oufkir and a cousin of fellow Moroccan writer and actress Leila Shenna.
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[edit] History
General Mohamed Oufkir was the interior minister, minister of defence and the chief of the armed forces. He was very trusted by King Hassan II (and the most powerful figure in Morocco after the King) during the 1960s and early 1970s in Morocco. But after attempting to assasinate the king and all the Moroccan delegation returning from France on a Boeing 727 jet in a coup d'êtat in 1972, General Oufkir has officially commited suicide, but many believe he was executed. Months later, his entire family was sent to a secret prison in the Sahara desert, suffering harsh conditions. Malika Oufkir and her family were initially confined to house arrest in a castle in the south of Morocco from 1973 to 1977; then they spent a total of 10 years in prison, before being released into house arrest in 1987 and finally set free in 1991. Later Malika and most of her family moved to France, where she married Eric Bordreuil in 1998.
[edit] Publications
Malika published an account of her life in prison, entitled Stolen Lives: Twenty Years in a Desert Jail, with French author Michèle Fitoussi.
[edit] Further reading
- Malika Oufkir and Michèle Fitoussi (2001), Stolen Lives: Twenty Years in a Desert Jail, Miramax Books (ISBN 0-7868-6861-9)
